Slightly better, sadly no will power involved

Hi Guys. Thank you to those fellow bloggers who left messages of support after the last post. Your support means the whole world to me.

Just seen a brilliant ad on TV where a woman is getting a quote from a plumber (with a bad case of workman's bum!) and before he delivers the catastrophic news ie how much it's going to cost, an airbag inflates from her stomach to cushion her against the blow! And my only thought on watching this was that I have a built in airbag on me at the moment in the shape of my swollen stomach. There's a whole load of stuff in there about people using fat as a defence against the world ...

Anyway, as it says in the title, things are slightly better. I am eating a more moderate amount of food. But sadly this has nothing to do with will power or strength or resolve of any kind, and everything to do with me feeling really ill since Friday. On Friday morning I got up feeling very hungry - probably as a result of the sudden exertion on Thursday ie being out for a few hours - and so I ate a lot, a mountain of food for "breakfast", and felt incredibly ill afterwards for the rest of the day. And since then I have simply been unable to eat to excess again due to feeling so ill and having quite a bit of stomach pain.

I'd so like to say it was a conscious decision, that I was at last making sensible choices, better choices etc. But that is not the case. I am just being physically prevented from binge eating at the moment. It makes me think a lot of Lisa's decision (see Less of Lisa on blog list) to consider going for a gastric band.

What you eat, when you eat, how much you eat is all about habit. Once you are in a good habit it's quite easy to keep going - unless something upsets the apple cart of course (which is what always happens to me) - but if life gives me an even chance, with nothing too stressful going on I can keep it up. In fact I actually enjoy the challenge of having boxes to tick every day and getting into bed at the end of the day and being able to tick all those boxes. It gives you a sense of achievement. Even when I cry every step of a walk due to the pain of my psoriasis - and I've done plenty of that earlier this year - I can enjoy the immense satisfaction afterwards that I've actually done it.

So the problem isn't doing it, but getting into it in the first place. Getting into the habit of eating much less and moving far more - getting to that place is very difficult. Because every aspect of your being is set up to expect large amounts of food and/or calorie dense foods, both physically and psychologically. To overturn all those expectations is really hard work, igoring your body's constant demands for food, and doing exercise which (at first) as you're doing it just makes you feel really bad physically, requires an iron will. If you are not in a place of any psychological strength at the start then it can become insurmountable.

As you may have guessed, dear reader, I am not in a place of any psychological strength right now. Therefore the facility of willpower is not readily available to me.

So my body is, for once, giving me a helping hand in making me too ill to eat too much in one go.